Electronic displays are a nearly ubiquitous medium for communicating information to users of a wide variety of devices and products. Most commonly employed electronic displays include the cathode ray tube (CRT), plasma display panels (PDP), liquid crystal displays (LCD), electroluminescent displays (EL), organic light emitting diode (OLED) and active matrix OLEDs (AMOLED) displays, electrophoretic displays (EP) and various displays that employ electromechanical or electrofluidic light modulation (e.g., digital micromirror devices, electrowetting displays, etc.). Generally, electronic displays may be categorized as either active displays (i.e., displays that emit light) or passive displays (i.e., displays that modulate light provided by another source). Among the most obvious examples of active displays are CRTs, PDPs and OLEDs/AMOLEDs. Displays that are typically classified as passive when considering emitted light are LCDs and EP displays. Passive displays, while often exhibiting attractive performance characteristics including, but not limited to, inherently low power consumption, may find somewhat limited use in many practical applications given the lack of an ability to emit light.
In addition to being classified as either active or passive, electronic displays may also be characterized according to an intended viewing distance of the electronic display. For example, the vast majority of electronic displays are intended to be located at a distance that is within a normal or ‘natural’ accommodation range of the human eye. As such, the electronic display may be viewed directly and naturally without additional optics. Some displays, on the other hand, are specifically designed to be located closer to a user's eye than the normal accommodation range. These electronic displays are often referred to as ‘near-eye’ displays and generally include optics of some form to facilitate viewing. For example, the optics may provide a virtual image of the physical electronic display that is within normal accommodation range to enable comfortable viewing even though the physical electronic display itself may not be directly viewable. Examples of applications that employ near-eye displays include, but are not limited to, head mounted displays (HMDs) and similar wearable displays as well as some head-up displays. Various virtual reality systems as well as augmented reality systems frequently include near-eye displays, since the near-eye display may provide a more immersive experience than conventional displays in such applications.
Certain examples and embodiments have other features that are one of in addition to and in lieu of the features illustrated in the above-referenced figures. These and other features are detailed below with reference to the above-referenced figures.